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Smallholder farmer Elizabeth Mpofu uses renewable energy to reduce emissions from firewood at her farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

When Nelson Mudzingwa arrived in the Shashe farming area in Mashava in Masvingo, about 294 kilometres from the capital Harare, in the early 2000s, the land was barren, with no hope that the soils could be suitable for farming.

The area used for cattle ranching had turned into a semi-arid.

Livestock was dying due to hunger while trees succumbed to deforestation, and water levels in the nearby Shashe River had decreased because of siltation.

More than two decades later Shashe farming area has transformed into a reputable farming hub.

This was done by employing agroecology techniques, including using locally available resources such as growing traditional grains, rehabilitating the area by planting trees, water harvesting to conserve water and venturing into poultry to get manure to improve soil fertility.

“When I harvest crops in the fields, I make sure that I put aside seed in preparation for the next season,” says Mudzingwa, the 53-year-old small-holder farmer who was born in Chiwundura in Midlands Province, a central part of Zimbabwe.

“By digging contours that channel water in our fields, we have improved the chances of receiving rainfall in Shashe. Even during the dry season, we receive rainfall which was not common when we first arrived.”

Peter Mudzingwa looking at harvested groundnuts at his father Nelson Mudzingwa’s farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Shashe farming area has evolved into a learning area where farmers around Zimbabwe and beyond the borders come to learn agroecology at Shashe Agroecology School, a centre of agroecology, of which Mudzingwa is one of the founders.

Zimbabwe, just like the rest of the southern African region, has been experiencing climate change-induced prolonged droughts and incessant rainfall resulting in floods.

Climate change does not discriminate.

Every living being must pay.

The majority of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, and climate change, caused by human activities, is a major threat to their livelihood.

They rely on agriculture to feed their families as well as earn a living by selling some of the produce.

Government and non-governmental organisations have been working hand in hand to introduce measures that reduce the impacts of climate change.

In Shashe, agroecology farming is basically conserving the land and environment.

This concept involves strengthening the resilience of smallholder farmers through the diversification of agroecosystems.

That is organic soil management and water harvesting for conservation.

In the Shashe farming area, smallholder farmers like Mudzingwa grow a variety of food crops, including grains, cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruit trees and medicinal plants.

They also rear livestock, including cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.

The grains such as sorghum, millet and rapoko are drought-resistant crops meaning smallholder farmers can still have a bumper harvest even during droughts.

Everything on the Mudzingwa’s farm is recycled.

“Livestock are our biggest source of manure. We collect crop residues from the fields and feed the cattle. Then we collect waste and make organic manure in compost,” says Mudzingwa, who is an agriculturist by profession.

The smallholder farmers in this area have fish ponds where they farm different species like catfish and breams.

Mudzingwa says fish farming, poultry, and crops depend on each other for survival.

“We feed fish with chicken droppings and worms. We keep worms in the composts we make for manure. The water from the fish ponds after harvesting is channelled to the garden because it is highly nutritious,” he says.

Another smallholder farmer is Elizabeth Mpofu, who has fed and clothed her three children and one grandchild using proceeds from her agroecology venture in the Shashe farming area.

She turned to sustainable farming after realising that rainfed agriculture was no longer viable in this area; she was resettled following the Land Reform Programme in the early 2000s.

The chaotic Land Reform Programme implemented under President Robert Mugabe saw black farmers taking back their land from the few minority white farmers two decades after Zimbabwe gained its independence from the British colonialists.

Just like Mudzingwa, Mpofu is into fish farming, growing drought-resistant crops like millet and sorghum, poultry and water harvesting to conserve moisture in the fields.

Mpofu keeps seeds for the next agriculture season to ensure that traditional grains critical in providing high yields amid climate change do not run into extinction.

Mudzingwa and Mpofu supply other farmers in Shashe and around the country with seeds and pass agroecology knowledge and skills to them.

Mpofu has planted trees and maintained indigenous trees near her plot as part of her reforestation efforts.

Mpofu’s family relies on agroecology.

She keeps some produce for her family after harvesting and sells the excess to other residents in Mashava or Masvingo, the province’s city.

“Agroecology is the way to go. As a woman, I have been able to look after myself and my family,” Mpofu, a widower, tells IPS.

The agroecology initiative in Mashava and Bikita has reached about 500 smallholder farmers, says Simba Guzha, a regional project manager for Voluntary Service Overseas, a charity supporting farmers like Mpofu and Mudzingwa.

Guzha tells IPS that affordable and less resource-input farming practices like agroecology are important to enhance agricultural production and increase food security at the household level.

“In Zimbabwe, agriculture production is mainly rainfed, and smallholder farmers in marginalized areas contribute more than 70 percent of food production in the country, yet they lack they do not have the financial capacity to purchase synthetic inputs.”

“In Mashava, most soils are loamy sands to sandy which are prone to acidification, leaching and poor structure and can barely support plant life, the use of organic fertilisers and green cover crops that bind the soil help to replenish such soils and enhance microbial activity that supports plant life while sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

Guzha says agroecology in Mashava has empowered women and the youth, who are usually marginalised and vulnerable.

“It has enhanced their productive capacity as well as empowered them to have diversified food sources and income-generating activities,” he says.

“Agroecology promotes growing of indigenous or orphan crops and diversity that are well suited to low rainfall areas like Mashava, hence, farmers are guaranteed of getting something in case of severe droughts. It has promoted local diets and culturally acceptable foods that are nutritious and healthy for the local people.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Women are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki and Jocelyn Chu
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

Last week, there was uproar in Kenya when a report about one of the largest banks, Equity Bank, revealed a 52 percent gender pay gap between their female and male employees working in similar positions. This difference is neither okay nor acceptable. However, documenting the gap is laudable because that is the first step in trying to fix it.

Of course, the gender pay gap is not unique to Kenya nor to the banking sector. Worldwide, on average, women only make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. No country has successfully closed the gender pay gap. As a result of this gap, there’s a lifetime of income inequality between men and women. This has many consequences, including that more women are retiring into poverty than men.

Worldwide, on average, women only make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. No country has successfully closed the gender pay gap. As a result of this gap, there's a lifetime of income inequality between men and women. This has many consequences, including that more women are retiring into poverty than men

The gender pay gap is even worse for some demographics of women, such as women of color and women raising children. In the United States Black women are paid only 69.5% of white men’s wages while Hispanic women are paid only 64.1% of white men’s wages. In sub–Saharan Africa, women with children are paid 37% less than men, and in South Asia, they are paid 35% less.

Women’s educational gains have not ended the gap. For example, in the U.S., despite gains in educational attainment, women still face a significant wage gap. While women are more likely to graduate from college than men, at every education level, they are paid less than men.

The wage gap actually widens with higher levels of educational attainment. Among workers who have only a high school diploma, women are paid 78.6% of what men are paid. Among workers who have a college degree, the share is 70.2%, and among workers who have an advanced degree, it is 69.8%. The gender pay gap also increases with age.

Many reasons have been advanced for the gender pay gap – some of them structural including occupational and sectoral segregation, devaluation of “women’s work”, societal norms, and discrimination, all of which took root well before women entered the labor market.

Within all sectors and both formal and informal economies, there is striking occupational segregation, with women typically occupying the lowest occupational categories, earning less, and having fewer entitlements to social security and pensions.

Women are overrepresented in sectors that are underpaid and undervalued, such as in social work and health care. They are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers.

If women take time off due to unpaid care work responsibilities and then go back to a job market where pay histories are used to determine job entry bands, their pay ends up lower than their male counterparts. Discrimination and gender stereotypes also give rise to biased judgments and decisions, impeding women’s advancement and pay.

Pay audits and pay transparency measures can help expose pay differences between men and women and identify the underlying causes. This is because addressing the gender pay gap requires knowing that it exists and what is causing it, which is why the Equity Bank sustainability report, while heavily criticized, is important.

A study in Finland found that 73% of human resource representatives found equal pay audits, in line with national legislation on pay transparency, to be useful in promoting workplace equality.

In fact, about 55% of enterprises surveyed reviewed job descriptions and/or altered wages, continued examining their gender pay gap or reformed their remuneration framework, because of information discovered from audits.

Pay transparency can also provide women, unions and other employees with the information and evidence they require to negotiate pay rates and provide as well as provide them with the means to challenge potential pay discrimination.

Other actions that can help close the pay gap are laws that require reporting of pay by gender, race, and ethnicity, and that prohibit employers from asking about pay history. Requiring employers to post pay bands when hiring has also been shown to have impact.

While this is positive, further action is required from governments and employers to address the gender pay gap. The Equal Pay International Coalition, convened by UN Women, the International Labour Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a mechanism to bring together stakeholders to commit to pay transparency and to closing the gender pay gap. But while many countries have adopted pay transparency legislation, more time is needed to assess the impact and effectiveness of the measures adopted.

There is also need for policies that lift wages for most workers while also reducing gender and racial/ethnic pay gaps. Minimum wages and strengthening workers’ rights to bargain collectively for higher wages and benefits is critical for closing the gender pay gap.

Women, who tend to occupy lower-paying jobs, have been shown to benefit the most from increases in minimum wages. An analysis of the increase of minimum wages in Poland between 2008-2009 concluded that higher minimum wages contributed to a lower gender wage gap among young workers.

Deeper changes in societal and cultural norms, especially those on care for children and interventions that seek the equal sharing of responsibilities in caregiving and domestic work by men and boys are needed.

The inequalities between women and men in the world of work will persist unless we act. And we need to act together.

For Equity Bank, this transparency is the first step in taking action to close this gender pay gap. A lot, however, depends on what they do next.

Jemimah Njuki is the Chief, Economic Empowerment at UN Women, and an Aspen New Voices Fellow

Jocelyn Chu is a Programme Specialist at UN Women

UN inspectors of the Joint Coordination Centre go to inspect a grain shipment aboard the merchant vessel LADY SPERANZA under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Istanbul, 17 February 2023. Credit: UN/Duncan Moore
 
“Russia is now deliberately targeting Ukraine’s grain storage and export infrastructure… There is a form of madness here as Putin has decided to weaponise food and perhaps his plan is to create a global food crisis.”

By John R. Bryson
BIRMINGHAM, UK, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

Russia’s special military or colonization operation in Ukraine continues to surprise. These surprises come from a decided absence of strategic thinking by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

Fundamentally, a paradox sits behind Putin’s war with Ukraine. This paradox reflects the tension between Putin’s desire to demonstrate that Russia is still a major power on the world stage and actions that continue to undermine Russia’s economy and international standing.

Central to this tension are differences between Russia and Ukraine regarding the value of human life. A recent battlefield incident highlights this difference.

Serhiy had been wounded and separated from his Ukrainian unit. He was spotted by a Ukrainian drone operator who reacted rapidly to save him. The drone operator from the 15th National Guard stated that they did not want to leave Serhiy as “every life is important to us”.

Putin and the Kremlin place no value on life. Whilst Serhiy was been rescued a Russian priest from the orthodox church proclaimed on Russian state television that Russian forces “came to war not to kill but to die” as a form of sacrifice.

This type of statement reflects the value placed by the Russian establishment on the life of Russian citizens. This then reflects Putin’s paradox as his war with Ukraine has made matters much worse for nearly all Russian citizens.

Putin’s decision to leave the UN-brokered grain export arrangement is another indicator of the value that the Kremlin places on human life. This is another paradoxical decision.

On the one hand, Russia is now deliberately targeting Ukraine’s grain storage and export infrastructure. This is civilian infrastructure, and moreover it is infrastructure that plays a critical role in world food markets and in feeding some of the most vulnerable people living on this planet.

There is a form of madness here as Putin has decided to weaponise food and perhaps his plan is to create a global food crisis. On Wednesday 2 August, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that “Moscow is waging a battle for a global catastrophe. In their madness, they need world food markets to collapse, they need a price crisis, they need disruptions in supplies”.

On the other hand, it is important to explore which countries benefited the most from the Black Sea grain deal. The answer is perhaps surprising – China. Ukraine exported 7.9 million tonnes of grain or just under a quarter of the grain involved in the Black Sea initiative to China.

Putin’s decision to prevent grain from being exported from Ukraine to China raises some interesting questions regarding the special relationship that is supposed to exist between these countries.

Putin’s war with Ukraine has led to Russia’s on-going isolation from international affairs. Putin is trying to address this isolation by trying to make friends. This process includes his intention that Russia “will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25-50,000 tonnes of free grain each in the next three to four months”.

There is a problem here in that Putin’s offer of between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of grain does not compensate for the 750,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain that was purchased by the World Food Programme (WFP) and shipped immediately to countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan.

The WFP is the largest humanitarian organization in the world and importantly this is not controlled by a single nation but was established by the United Nations.

There are rather too many Putin paradoxes. This includes his proclamation regarding the end of “neo-colonialism” and the emergence of a multi-polar global order.

There is the obvious tension here in that Putin states that he is against the application of power and influence to subjugate other countries, but then offers ‘free food’ to some countries and yet free food always comes with strings attached.

Evidently, Putin favours colonialism but also practices neo-colonialism.

Putin’s rhetoric regarding his vision of a new multipolar world must be treated with caution. Putin’s imaginary new world has much in common with George Orwell’s novel ‘Animal Farm’ in that all nations would be equal, but Russia would be more equal than others.

A truly multi-polar world would be one in which initiatives led by organisations like the UN take priority over any initiatives led by any one country. It is time to shift away from one nation trying to dominate global affairs to a world in which effective supranational organisations try to ensure that all living on planet earth are treated equably.

Of course, this is a utopian vision. The realty will be a continued struggle between competing politicians/nations, and this will result in negative outcomes for all.

John R. Bryson is Professor of Enterprise and Economic Geography – University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, and its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Two pregnant girls walk through the center of the capital of El Salvador, a country with one of the highest rates of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, and where, as in the rest of Central America, what prevails are conservative views opposed to the teaching of sex education in schools, which is essential to reducing the phenomenon. CREDIT: Francisco Campos / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR , Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.

The most recent incident reflecting this situation was the Jul. 29 veto by Honduran President Xiomara Castro of an Integral Law for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy, approved by the single-chamber Congress on Mar. 8 and criticized by conservative groups and the country’s political right wing."When I became pregnant I didn't even know what a condom was, I'm not ashamed to say it." -- Zuleyma Beltrán

“We don’t know the arguments behind the veto, but we could surmise that the law is still being held up by pressure from these anti-rights groups,” lawyer Erika García, of the Women’s Rights Center, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.

The influence of lobbying groups

Conservative sectors, united in “Por nuestros hijos” (“for our children”), a Honduran version of the regional movement “Con mis Hijos no te Metas” (roughly “don’t mess with my children”), have opposed the law because in their view it pushes “gender ideology”, as international conservative populist groups call the current movement for the dissemination of women’s and LGBTI rights.

In June, the United Nations expressed concern about “disinformation campaigns” surrounding the Honduran law.

The last of the marches in favor of “family and children” took place in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jul. 22.

These groups “appeal to people’s ignorance, to fear, to religion, with arguments that have nothing to do with reality,” said García. “They say, for example, that people will put skirts on boys and pants on girls.”

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one in four births is to a girl under 19 years of age in Honduras, giving the country the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America.

According to the Honduran Penal Code having sexual relations with minors under 14 years of age is statutory rape, whether or not the girl consented.

In 2022, 1039 girls under 14 gave birth.

“The problem is quite serious, and it is aggravated by the lack of public policies to prevent pregnancies among girls and adolescents,” García said.

In the countries of Central America, which have a combined total of some 50 million inhabitants, ultra-conservative views prevail when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and education.

In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean – abortion is banned under all circumstances, including rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.

In the rest of Central America, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances.

The Honduran president vetoed the law under the formula “return to Congress”, so that it can be studied again and eventually ratified if two thirds of the 128 lawmakers approve it.

 

Zuleyma Beltrán, 41, talked about becoming pregnant at the age of 15 because there is no proper sex education in El Salvador. A second pregnancy led to a miscarriage that landed her in jail in 1999, where many Salvadoran women who miscarry or have abortions end up due to a draconian anti-abortion law. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

 

“I didn’t even know what a condom was”

However, having laws of this nature does not ensure that the phenomenon will be reduced, since legislation is not always enforced.

Since 2017 El Salvador has had a National Intersectoral Strategy for the Prevention of Pregnancy in Girls and Adolescents, and although the numbers have declined in recent years, they are still high.

An UNFPA report noted that in this country the pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents dropped by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2022.

However, “it is worrisome to see that El Salvador is one of the 50 countries in the world with the highest fertility rates in girls aged 10-14 years,” the UN agency said in its latest report, released in July.

Among girls aged 10-14, the study noted, the pregnancy rate dropped by 59.6 percent, from 4.7 girls registered for prenatal care per 1000 girls in 2015 to 1.9 in 2022.

The map of pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador added that the country “needs to further accelerate the pace of reduction, adopting policies and strategies adapted to the different realities of girls aged 10-14 years and adolescents aged 15-19 years.”

Such actions must be “evidence-based,” the report stressed.

The reference appears to be an allusion to the prevalence of conservative attitudes of groups that, in Honduras for example, reject sexual and reproductive education in schools.

This lack of basic knowledge about sexuality, in a context of structural poverty, led Zuleyma Beltrán to fall pregnant at the age of 15.

“When I became pregnant I didn’t even know what a condom was, I’m not ashamed to say it,” Beltrán, now 41, told IPS.

She added: “I suffered a lot because I didn’t know many things, because I lived in ignorance.”

Two years later, Beltrán became pregnant again but she miscarried, which landed her in jail in August 1999, accused of having an abortion – a plight faced by hundreds of women in El Salvador.

El Salvador not only bans abortion under any circumstances, even in cases of rape. It also imposes penalties of up to 30 years in prison for women who have undergone abortions, and women who end up in the hospital after suffering a miscarriage are often prosecuted under the law as well.

“The State should be ashamed of forcing these girls to give birth and not giving them options,” said Anabel Recinos, of the Citizens’ Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion.

“The State does not provide girls with sex education or sexual and reproductive health, and when pregnancies or obstetric emergencies occur as a result, it is too cruel to them, it only offers them jail,” she added.

Recinos said that, due to pressure from conservative groups, the State has backed down on the strategy of providing sexual and reproductive information in schools.

“Now they are more rigorous in not allowing organizations working in that area to go and give talks on comprehensive sex education in schools,” she noted.

 

Not even baby formula

In Guatemala, initiatives by civil society organizations that since 2017 have proposed, among other things, that the State should offer reparations to pregnant girls and adolescents, to alleviate their heavy burden, have made no progress either.

These proposals included the creation of scholarships, making it possible for girls to continue going to school while their babies were cared for and received formula.

“But unfortunately we have not been able to take the next step, to get these measures in place,” said Paula Barrios, general coordinator of Women Transforming the World, in a telephone conversation with IPS from the capital, Guatemala City.

Barrios said that most of the users of the services offered by this organization, such as legal and psychological support, “are girls and adolescents who are pregnant because of sexual violence and are forced to have their babies.”

She said that in the last five years some 500,000 girls under 14 years of age have become pregnant, and the number is much higher when teenagers up to 19 years of age are included.

“Today we have half a million girls who we don’t know what they and the children who are the products of rape are eating,” Barrios stressed, adding that as in El Salvador and Honduras, in Guatemala, having sex with a girl under 14 years of age is considered statutory rape.

“Society sees it as normal that women are born to be mothers, and so it doesn’t matter if a girl gets pregnant at the age of 10 or 12 years, they just think she has done it a little bit earlier,” she said.

 

Patriarchy and capitalism

The experts from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador consulted by IPS said the root of the phenomenon is multi-causal, with facets of patriarchy, especially gender stereotypes and sexual violence.

“The patriarchy has an interest in stopping women from going out into the public sphere,” said Barrios.

She said the life of a 10-year-old girl is cut short when she becomes pregnant. She will no longer go to school and will remain in the domestic sphere, “to raise children and stay at home.”

For her part, Garcia, the lawyer from Honduras, pointed out that there is also an underlying “system of oppression” that is intertwined with patriarchy and colonialism, which is the influence of a hegemonic country or region.

“We have girls giving birth to cheap labor to feed the (capitalist) system, and there is a greater feminization of poverty, girls giving birth to girls whose future prospects are ruined,” she said.

In the meantime, to avoid a repeat of her ordeal, Beltrán said she talks to and teaches her nine-year-old daughter about sexuality.

“In order to keep her from repeating my story, I talk to her about condoms, how a woman has to take care of herself and how she can get pregnant,” she said.

“I don’t want her to go through what I did,” she said.

View of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Philippe Benoit and Anne-Sophie Corbeau
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

The Colorado river basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. Up on the Colorado sits the iconic Hoover Dam, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.

Although an agreement was reached by the three dependent Western states to cut water use, it served as a reminder of the dependency of energy production on water … a dependency that is being subjected to greater uncertainties because of climate change.

This phenomenon is not only impacting citizens dependent on the Colorado River but stretches across the United States and the world. Over the past two years, Europe, China, Brazil, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, have experienced the worst droughts in (sometimes hundreds of) years.

The energy-for-water dimension will become increasingly fraught, driven by the combination of climate change, growing populations and increasing prosperity. Not only do we need to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we also require stronger concerted actions on adaptation and resilience

Importantly, the water-to-energy relationship also runs the other way: water production and delivery are themselves dependent on energy.

Moreover, the need of water services for energy is likely to increase, driven by growing populations, rising prosperity (notably in developing countries) and novel uses of energy for water in desalination plants and elsewhere. As we feel the impact of increasingly intense heat waves and droughts, the time has come to revisit the challenges of the water-energy nexus.

The dependence of energy production on water has long been recognized by energy experts, but has surprised many others. Beyond very visible hydropower plants, like the Hoover Dam, water is used to cool down nuclear power plants (through the cooling towers emitting steam that many may have noticed, without perhaps always identifying the purpose), as well as in natural gas and coal-fired plants. Water is also used in various stages of the energy supply chain, including for production and processing.

Climate change is expected, through its impact on water supply and availability, to increase vulnerabilities in energy production. For example, changing rain patterns will create uncertainties for hydropower production, which represents 15 percent of global power generation, even if the overall level of rainfall doesn’t change.

Heat waves have reduced water levels and raised water temperature above the levels at which water can be discharged back into rivers, restricting the operation of many nuclear power plants.

And in a completely different dynamic, various coal power plants dependent on barge transport for resupply have seen their operations imperiled by low water levels. These are aspects that have received some, but altogether inadequate, attention to date.

Both hydroelectricity and nuclear generation, two low-carbon sources of electricity, are expected to increase significantly over decades to come under various government programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, even as the need for water to cool down coal-fired plants is eventually expected to drop as countries transition from this carbon intensive fuel source, new uses for water are emerging, including for the production of hydrogen through electrolysis.

What has attracted less attention is the impact of growing demand for energy from developments in water systems. The UN projects that the world’s population will increase by over 1.2 billion by 2040, with about two-thirds of that increase occurring in emerging economies and other developing countries.

These nations are also projected to see significant increases in their income levels, increasing the ability of their populations to access water services, at home, at the office or for pleasure. Moreover, the demand for food is also similarly projected to increase, and with that, the need for more water irrigation services inevitably powered by energy.

These factors are helping to drive an increase in the demand for energy. For example, the International Energy Agency projects that the amount of energy required by the water sector will more than double within 20 years. The major driver under the IEA’s modelling is the demand from desalination plants.

These are no longer confined to the dryer climates of the Middle East and North Africa, but also in regions which once thought that their water supplies were ample, such as Europe or Asia. Other important growing demand for water is also coming from waste water treatment plants and the supply of clean drinking water and sanitation services to both the billions of poor who currently lack it and the other more prosperous billions across the developing world whose consumption is projected to increase.

Unfortunately, efforts to meet this demand will be exacerbated by climate change. For example, droughts are likely to require the transport of water over longer distances to satisfy the needs of populations suffering from water scarcity, an effort that will require more energy.

Similarly, over the past year, droughts have heightened the possibility of water restrictions for millions of people in Southern Europe, including drinking water, which might in turn require more desalination.

But though tensions are inevitable, actions can be taken to, if not avoid the problems, dampen its impact. Actions lie in the water or energy sectors, and, often, at the intersection of the two. In the water sector, these include reducing water losses, allowing construction of rainwater collection tanks for agricultural use, increasing waste-water facilities, and fast-tracking the installation of desalination plants.

In energy, transitioning to solar irrigation pumps is something that can help everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike. At the intersection, actions include hydropower plant design and management that are better adapted to the changing rainfall patterns of the future, building more efficient water-based cooling systems for other plants, and even greater use of artificial intelligence.

The energy-for-water dimension will become increasingly fraught, driven by the combination of climate change, growing populations and increasing prosperity. Not only do we need to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we also require stronger concerted actions on adaptation and resilience.

Like for energy, we need to be more efficient at using water, whether this is for households needs, industrial processes, agriculture or energy; meanwhile concerted action and discussion between those sectors will be needed.

The recent events along the Colorado River serve as an important wake-up call. Water is at the essence of our quality of life, and energy is an integral part of that story. We need to do a better job of managing our thirst for water and the energy required to satisfy that demand … and we need to do this in the face of a changing climate.

(First published in The Hill on July 7, 2023)

Philippe Benoit is research director for Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050 and previously held management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is also adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Anne-Sophie Corbeau is global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a visiting professor at Sciences Po.

Nigerian law protects widows, but the reality they face is quite different.

By Promise Eze
SOKOTO, NIGERIA, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

In February this year, Chichi Okonkwo not only lost her husband but was stripped of everything they owned together. Her husband was severely injured in a car accident about a month earlier. Despite being rushed to a hospital in Enugu, where they resided, he succumbed to his injuries weeks later. To compound her grief, Okonkwo’s late husband’s male siblings forcibly entered her home in the city a few hours after his passing, confiscating her husband’s land documents, car, money, clothes, and marriage certificate.

In the wake of these heart-wrenching events, Okonkwo was left with nothing but her six children. The eldest is just 18.

“They took everything my husband and I owned and forcibly evicted me and my children from our home,” laments Okonkwo. “They heartlessly claimed that, as a widow, I had no rights to any of my late husband’s possessions.”

Okonkwo’s children are now out of school because she was a housewife who depended on her husband’s income and is now left with nothing. She revealed that her late husband’s siblings, who seized and were aware of his bank PIN, callously left her with a mere 1 000 naira (approximately USD 2) out of the 2 million naira ($2,600) he had in his account.

Okonkwo said her husband’s relatives swore to drag her to court to challenge her rights, but she cannot afford a lawyer due to her financial situation.

In Nigeria, there are around 15 million widows.

Unfortunately, widows in the country often face the denial of their basic human rights due to traditional and cultural practices rooted in patriarchal beliefs.

According to The World Bank, “In much of Africa, marriage is the sole basis for women’s access to social and economic rights, and these are lost upon divorce or widowhood.”

In a country like Nigeria, where men dominate the economic and political systems, women are often expected to be submissive. The challenges women face are particularly amplified when they become widows, creating a doubly marginalized subgroup. Moreover, this vulnerable position sometimes exposes widows to dehumanizing rituals and harmful practices.

These harmful practices include mourning rites that involve widows sleeping with their deceased husbands’ corpses, shaving of widows’ heads, seclusion, wearing black or white clothes, and being forced to sleep and sit on the floor or mat. Additionally, some widows are coerced into marrying other members of the deceased husband’s family.

Despite laws granting women the right to inherit their husbands’ assets, many widows can still not claim their rightful share of land and property.

Efforts to combat these practices, such as the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) enacted in 2015, have faced challenges in implementation and adoption by all states. According to the law, offenders are subject to a 500,000 naira ($648) fine or two years in prison. But arrests and prosecution of offenders are rare. And gender-based violence has persisted, which includes violence towards widows.

The enforcement of laws against offenders has been hindered by religious and cultural norms that promote silence and suppression of victimization cases. Victims often face threats or pressure from family members, community, or religious leaders whenever they try to report incidents to law enforcement.

Like Okonkwo, Sarah Temidayo’s life took a tragic turn when she lost her husband of four years to lung cancer in 2019. However, her grief was compounded by the actions of her husband’s relatives, who invaded her home in Lagos mere hours after his passing, intent on claiming everything that belonged to him. They even went so far as to take her wedding gown, certificates, and her then-five-year-old daughter’s clothes. Devastated and without recourse, Temitope sought justice through the legal system, but her efforts have yielded no results.

“I did not pick a pin out of my house. I had to start my life all over again,” she says.

Unfortunately, the nightmare did not end there for Temidayo. She was subjected to constant threats from her husband’s mother, who continued to torment her and accuse her of killing her son through witchcraft. These threats escalated to a terrifying climax when assassins attacked her at a bus stop in March 2021. She managed to survive, albeit with six bullets lodged in her leg. Despite reporting the incident to the police, no investigation was conducted, leaving her feeling abandoned by the system meant to protect her.

According to Ifeoma Oguejiofor, a legal practitioner in Southeast Nigeria, widows face challenges in seeking justice due to the understaffed courts, which can cause delays in the resolution of cases. Additionally, the financial burden of hiring a lawyer becomes a significant obstacle for many widows, making it difficult to access proper legal representation to handle their cases.

“There is a significant difference between the laws written in books and the actual pursuit of justice. According to the law, a surviving spouse, whether in a traditional marriage, a long period of cohabitation, or a marriage registered under the act, is entitled to inherit the estate of their deceased spouse. However, achieving justice through the legal system is often a prolonged and costly process, particularly for widows who have already lost a substantial portion of their assets to their husband’s relatives,” she explains.

“It’s high time the government, traditional rulers, and religious clerics enforce laws to protect widows in Nigeria. No woman should be discriminated against because she lost her husband,” says Hope Nwakwesi, the founder of Almanah Hope Foundation, a non-governmental organization focused on supporting Nigerian widows.

Nwakwesi, a widow who lost her police husband in 1994, endured distressing cultural rites, including having her hair shaved and wearing a mourning dress for a year. She faced further hardships as her relatives forcibly took her property, and she was expelled from her workplace and home in the police barracks. Despite seeking help, many, including police officers who offered assistance, demanded sexual favors in return.

Now, Nwakwesi is advocating for a bill in Nigeria’s legislative chamber. The bill aims to eradicate repressive cultural practices against widows and safeguard their fundamental human rights.

“My goal is to get the bill I’m fighting for approved and signed into law by the Senate. The current Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law is too vague and lacks specific clauses for protecting the rights of widows. Once the new bill becomes law, those who discriminate against widows will face arrest and prosecution by law enforcement agencies,” says Nwakwesi.

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, a civil rights activist and founding director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, noted that “For the government to protect widows effectively, they should review and update existing laws related to widows’ rights to ensure they are comprehensive, enforceable, and in line with international human rights standards.”

“Merely having laws in place is not enough; the government must ensure their effective implementation at all levels of the justice system. This requires training and sensitizing law enforcement officials, judges, and legal practitioners on the rights of widows and the importance of protecting them,” she adds.

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By Tanyalak Thongyoojaroen
NEW YORK, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

In Asia, freedom of the press continues to erode, especially in authoritarian regimes where journalists are often targeted in broad daylight.

More and more, journalists are put behind bars or face strategic lawsuits against public participation, otherwise known as SLAPP, for reporting what’s actually happening on the ground.

Over the past three years, not only have several independent media outlets had their licenses revoked, but autocratic regimes across the region continue using a variety of tactics to prevent journalists from doing their job.

Social media is often used to humiliate, harass, and discredit journalists. Between May 2022 and April 2023, the International Federation of Journalists documented at least 19 online attacks and eight gender-based instances of violence against journalists in South Asia.

In China, the regime uses surveillance and other forms of intimidation to prevent journalists from reporting issues deemed critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

To silence journalists and discredit their work, China has orchestrated a digital repression campaign, largely playing out on Twitter. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) reported hundreds of spurious Twitter accounts — likely linked with the pro-CCP network — created with the sole purpose of targeting Asian female journalists and activists, including those living or working abroad.

Female journalists, in particular, experienced constant sexual harassment and misogynistic trolling. They have been accused of being liars, traitors, or betrayers of their homeland.

In Burma, journalists are treated as criminals. “If you are covering human rights violations, [the regime] considers you like an enemy. And also, they consider journalism like committing a crime against the state,” Burmese writer Kyaw Hsan Hlaing told the Human Rights Foundation (HRF).

“There are so many online threats journalists face, including through Messenger, Facebook, and also Telegram. I received threats online and also direct phone calls, threatening that I will be arrested. This is after the military coup. That’s why I had to sleep in many locations in Yangon. I had to move to other places.”

Vietnam, one of the most repressive countries in Asia for journalism, implemented stricter online censorship, requiring big tech companies like Facebook and Google to remove articles and videos criticizing the regime.

Reporters and citizen journalists using social media often see their accounts blocked or posts removed if they cover issues deemed sensitive by the regime. Moreover, Vietnam established Force 47, a virtual army with thousands of netizens tasked with “defending the ruling party” and attacking dissidents — including activists and journalists.

Last year, four Asian countries made it on Reporters Without Borders’ Top Five worst jailers of journalists list. Unsurprisingly, China came in first place, Burma second, then Iran, Vietnam, and Belarus. More than half of the world’s imprisoned journalists were held in these five countries.

China, the biggest user of propaganda and systematic repression of the media, was ranked second to last on the World Press Freedom Index, only behind one of its closest allies, North Korea.

Last year, the CCP regime imprisoned at least 110 journalists, including Huang Xueqin, who reported on corruption and environmental pollution. Many imprisoned journalists are ethnic Uyghurs from the Uyghur Region. In some cases, Chinese officials held journalists in pretrial detention.

For example, Cheng Lei, a former TV anchor with CCP’s state-run channel based in Beijing, CGTN, has been detained for more than two years. To date, Chinese officials have revealed neither the details of the charges against her nor whether she has been sentenced.

In Burma, the regime’s attempt to silence journalists has resulted in an alarming number of arrests of journalists, activists, and public figures. Since the military junta seized power in a coup in February 2021, at least 176 journalists have been arrested and four killed.

Many journalists were charged under Section 505(A) of the country’s Penal Code, which criminalizes “causing fear, spreading false news, or agitating directly or indirectly criminal offenses against a Government employee.” The law is vaguely defined and arbitrarily interpreted by the courts.

Like its neighbor, Vietnam uses vague laws to suppress journalists. The regime implemented heavy bans on reporting “sensitive topics,” particularly issues related to human rights, the environment, and democracy.

In recent years, many activists and journalists have been charged under Article 117, which criminalizes “making, storing, distributing, or disseminating information, documents, and items against the State,” and Article 331, which prohibits “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the State.”

Among those detained was an independent journalist, Do Cong Duong, who reported on corruption-related issues and land seizures by the regime. Duong was charged under Article 331 and was originally sentenced to 48 months in prison, where he suffered from various illnesses.

Despite his family’s repeated protests, officials refused to grant him the necessary care and medical assistance. When Duong finally received medical treatment, it was too late. He died in prison last year.

Dictators will stop at nothing to silence the most outspoken critics.

Tanyalak Thongyoojaroen is a legal and policy intern with the Human Rights Foundation (HRF).

Journalism is one of the world’s most dangerous professions. Under authoritarian regimes, dictators ceaselessly attempt to silence the media with violence, harassment, and arbitrary detention. And still, journalists continue to risk their lives to uncover and report the truth. HRF stands in solidarity with journalists who write truth to power.

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DG Simeon Ehui visits IITA Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponic SAH, cassava multiplication section with Kenton Dashiell and Debo Akande facilitated by Mercy Diebru-Ojo, Assitant Seed Specialist (Right). Credit: IITA

By Guy Dinmore
ST DAVIDS, WALES, Aug 2 2023 (IPS)

“My key message is really simple,” says Dr Simeon Ehui, the newly-appointed director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.

“The clock is ticking,” Ehui tells IPS in an interview from Washington DC on his last day at the World Bank, urging Africa’s leaders to recognise the “absolute, paramount” importance of increasing funding for agriculture.

Dr Ehui, who also becomes regional director of Continental Africa for CGIAR, a global network of food security research organisations, says Africa’s food security is worsening. He lists the challenges: the climate crisis and extreme weather events that are presently causing floods in the west and central Africa and drought in the east; relatively high population growth; migration to urban areas; and specifically, the Ukraine-Russia war that triggered soaring prices of chemical fertilisers and grain.

As the African Development Bank recently noted, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in fertiliser prices rising two to three times over 2020 levels, creating serious supply gaps across the continent and driving food inflation. In sub-Saharan Africa, households spend up to 40% of their budget on food, compared to 17% in developed economies. Africa, the bank says, is over-reliant on food staples and agricultural inputs, importing over 100 million tonnes of cereals a year.

Much of that food deficit and accompanying poverty is concentrated in several African states, led by Nigeria (where IITA is based in Ibadan), which is projected to overtake the US as the world’s third most populous country by 2050 with some 400 million people.

“My vision is thriving agricultural food systems in Africa,” says Dr Ehui, and, specifically for IITA and CGIAR, this means fostering the conditions to sustain centres of research excellence where scientists will be excited to work, with transparency of management and gender equality.

“We have to be able to respond quickly … We need to accelerate our research to respond to the needs of the people,” he adds.

While the global climate crisis is having a huge impact on food security, Dr Ehui agrees that political issues cannot be set aside. “We can’t divorce policy issues from the bigger agenda [climate change]. The two go together,” he says, singling out land tenure, land grabbing, and obstacles to women having access to land.

IITA will provide analysis and options for policy-makers to improve access to land and boost investments in agriculture.

Asked whether he is concerned that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plays an overly dominant role in providing over half of IITA’s funding of “research and delivery” projects, Dr Ehui begins by expressing his appreciation of the foundation’s support, particularly in the development of Aflasafe to combat dangerous aflatoxin in maise, groundnuts and other crops. However, the new director general also says he wants to “diversify sources of funding and scale-up research”.

He also rejects criticism from some quarters of the “failure” of Africa’s Green Revolution as embraced by Bill Gates, saying India’s one-crop model of the “green revolution” and a lack of care for the environment had not been applicable to Africa and its own complex systems.

IITA and CGIAR are responding to the needs of smallholder farmers in Africa, Dr Ehui says, and that means agriculture that is sustainable and regenerative.

“The focus on regenerative agriculture reflects the importance of natural resource management and local eco-systems,” says Dr Ehui, a national of Cote d’Ivoire who worked for 15 years at CGIAR, managing multi-agricultural research development programs in Africa and Asia, and whose most recent post was World Bank Regional Director for Sustainable Development for West and Central Africa.

Asked if there was a genuine shift towards regenerative and sustainable practices for Africa, Dr Ehui said CGIAR had long been focusing on using local technologies for enhancing food security, for example, reducing reliance on chemical fertilisers for those who could not afford it and using locally available inputs instead. “When I was a young scientist, we were working on these technologies,” he notes.

The Dakar 2 summit on food security last January recognised how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had exposed Africa’s over-reliance on imports of chemical fertilisers. “We have the resources to make it locally,” says Dr Ehui, who chaired a summit session.

At the summit, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, then head of the African Union, declared that “Africa must learn to feed itself” and that at least 10 percent of national budgets should be spent on agriculture.

Dr Ehui says it has been shown that every dollar spent on agricultural research brings a return of 10 dollars and that such investment will go a long way to help improve the socio-economic conditions of the people. Meeting basic needs will also help stem migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, he says.

Despite the challenges, agriculture is growing in much of sub-Saharan Africa and remains the mainstay of most African economies and a major employer. With 65% of the world’s remaining arable land in Africa and with a youthful and dynamic population, the African Development Bank believes Africa is capable of feeding itself as the world approaches a total population of nine billion people by 2050.

But have the pleas heard at the Dakar summit been heeded? “There has been a shift,” Dr Ehui replies. Funding for agriculture is still “below optimum”, but “a few countries” have responded, and he feels confident that, with work, numbers will soon increase.

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The World Health Organization says round 7 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Aug 2 2023 (IPS)

Climate change is making us sick. It has become urgent to build resilient health systems to secure humanity’s well-being, says the special envoy for climate change and health of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Climate change is unquestionably affecting our health every day,” says Vanessa Kerry– a renowned global health expert and medical doctor – who was appointed the WHO Director-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health in June.

She has a tall order to amplify WHO’s climate and health messaging and conduct high-level advocacy on tackling climate change to secure global health.

Increasing Disease Burden

“The climate crisis is a health crisis,” Kerry told IPS in an interview, calling for urgent action to mitigate and adapt to the climate challenge, which has increased the burden of disease around the world.

“Climate change poses a fundamental threat to our health. We are  looking at the growing burden of disease, so urgent action is absolutely needed at this  moment not only to address the pipeline of disease that is coming but to ensure that we can mitigate some of the causes of this poor health and  adapt to the complex challenge.”

Vanessa Kerry. Credit: Seed Global Health

According to the WHO, one in four deaths in the world currently is from preventable environmental causes. For example, around 7 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution, which is more than the deaths during three years of COVID globally, Kerry said.

The  WHO is already estimating an extra 250 000 deaths per year linked to climate change.

Climate change-induced extreme weather has spiked the incidents of infectious and communicable, and non-communicable diseases, while extreme heat has triggered a rise in cardiovascular diseases and mental illnesses.

Malawi and parts of Southern Africa have suffered serious cholera outbreaks. India faced health heat-related illnesses, a  surge of malaria after the flooding in Pakistan last year, and a malaria outbreak in the United States, all linked to climate change.

Vector-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue, schistosomiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease, and yellow fever, are strongly affected by climatic conditions such as temperature, rainfall, and humidity. While water-borne and sanitation-related diseases, such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery, are a major contributor to global disease burden and mortality, according to the WHO.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasts a 90 percent probability of the El Niño event in the second half of 2023, which is set to trigger a rise in global temperatures and more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean, said WMO Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas.

“The declaration of an El Niño by WMO is the signal to governments around the world to mobilize preparations to limit the impacts on our health, our ecosystems, and our economies,” Taalas said.

El Niño – a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean – occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes typically last nine to 12 months.

The IPCC finds that there is a more than 50 percent chance that global temperature rise will reach or surpass 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) between 2021 and 2040 across studied scenarios, and under a high-emissions pathway, specifically, the world may hit this threshold even sooner — between 2018 and 2037.

According to the IPCC Assessment Report, climate change has adversely affected the physical health of people globally. Furthermore, extreme heat events have resulted in human mortality and morbidity, while climate-related food-borne, water-borne diseases, and vector-borne diseases have also increased.

Health at COP28

2023 is a crucial year for the intersection of climate change and health as the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), more commonly referred to as COP28, will hold a  first-ever day dedicated to health at the climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates in December. This will serve as a critical opportunity to emphasize the profound significance of addressing climate change in relation to human health, Kerry said.

“My goal is to ensure our response to the climate crisis could be health-centered and try to mainstream it at COP negotiations, “ said Kerry, who believes in promoting public understanding of the climate crisis as a health crisis that must be managed now.

“I think people tend to associate climate change with just one aspect of health, like infectious diseases. But the truth is we see climate change impacting pretty much every aspect of health, communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases,” she said.

The Paris Agreement of 2015 is seen as a public health agreement with the WHO highlighting that health considerations are critical to the advancement of climate action, and meeting the Paris Agreement could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone.

Kerry said, for instance, investment in reducing air pollution would save lives and prevent a future loss of almost $50 trillion spent since 2010 in addressing this challenge.

“We also have an opportunity to reframe how we think about what being healthy means and how that impacts both our environment and how we live, ” said Kerry, stressing the importance of meaningful investment in stronger health systems and a workforce capable of meeting some of the climate burdens.

Investing in Health Systems

Kerry said building resilient health systems through training health workers and investing in infrastructure is key to responding to climate change. Many health systems around the world are already under-resourced and understaffed. They cannot deal with the current burden of disease and what will come as the impacts of climate change grow.

“We also have an opportunity to reframe how we think about what being healthy means and how that impacts both our environment and how we live, ” said Kerry, stressing the need for absolute dollars going into health and a health-centered climate smart response.

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By External Source
Aug 2 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell was appointed as a Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) on 25 October 2022. He was previously Secretary of State for International Development from May 2010 to September 2012. He was elected Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield on 7 June 2001.

Andrew was educated at Rugby School and Jesus College, Cambridge where he studied history and was President of the Union. He served in the Royal Tank Regiment before joining Lazard, where he worked with British companies seeking large-scale overseas contracts.

After serving as a government whip between 1993 and 1995, Andrew served as Minister for Social Security from 1995 to 1997. While in opposition, he was Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs from 2003 to 2004 and Shadow Minister for Home Affairs from 2004 to 2005. He then served as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development until the 2010 election.

ECW: The UK is ECW’s second largest donor with more than US$250 million in contributions to date. Why is investing in Education Cannot Wait a priority for the UK (especially for the more than 224 million crisis-affected girls and boys who urgently need our support)? Why should it be a priority for other public and private sector donors?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: The UK is proud to be a co-founding member and leading donor to ECW. As the global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW shines a spotlight on the education needs of children caught up in emergencies and protracted crises around the world. We continue to support ECW because we refuse to give up on the 224 million children and adolescents affected by the horrors of war, natural disaster, and displacement. Today, approximately 2 billion people live in fragile and conflict-affected states. Education has a critical role to play in protecting children, especially girls, from the threats that crises pose. Education is too often neglected in humanitarian crises in favour of life-saving food and shelter. Education can, however, provide structure and stability for children and their families; and is a lifeline through to a better future. It is essential that we continue to support education for all those caught up in crises, wherever these may be.

ECW: In recent FCDO reports, the impact of the climate crisis on the education of 40 million children was underscored. Looking ahead to COP28 and beyond, how can ECW and the UK work together to join up on education and climate action to help address the impact of climate change and environmental degradation?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: In December last year, I launched FCDO’s new Position Paper “Addressing the climate, environment, and biodiversity crises, in and through girls’ education.” This Position Paper set out FCDO’s vision for bringing the relationship between education and climate change into sharper focus. Without providing an urgent emergency response to children living in contexts of extreme weather events and adapting education systems to climate shocks, education goals will continue to fall further out of reach. School infrastructure will be destroyed, agricultural land will be under water, and children will go hungry. Conversely, without harnessing the power of education, we are unlikely to solve the climate crisis. If we want to effectively tackle these priority issues, we must better understand and find integrated and holistic solutions.

I am pleased to see that ECW have increased their funding to support the First Emergency Response programmes at the onset of a crisis, particularly for recent climate shocks like the floods in Pakistan in 2022 and the ongoing droughts in Ethiopia and Somalia. The UK has advocated for increased attention to the educational needs of affected children, and we continue to work together to improve the emergency response in contexts of emergencies caused by climate and environmental change.

Through ECW’s Acceleration Facility, and their expertise as an emergency response provider, the UK and ECW are working together to advance learning on proven integrated solutions to deliver access to safe schools, quality of learning, and improved adaptation to climate and environmental change. We still however need more evidence of solutions that deliver these co-benefits that can be shared more widely to those in similar contexts and then delivered at scale.

ECW: On several occasions, you have highlighted the importance of mobilizing resources from the private sector towards the UK’s development goals. As ECW pursues its $1.5 billion target, what role could the private sector play in helping ECW reach 20 million crisis-affected girls and boys by the end of 2026?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: In a context of rising need, which is not matched by rising humanitarian funding, education is one of many sectors underfunded in the emergency response. This is why the UK was instrumental in establishing Education Cannot Wait: to shine a spotlight on education in emergencies. Since then, ECW has reached almost 7 million children affected by conflict and crises, including over 3 million girls. But we must do more to keep children in crises safe and learning. An average humanitarian crisis now lasts around nine years, but often much longer. The impact on children being out of school in a crisis context is staggering. It increases their vulnerability to child labour, abuse and exploitation and decreases their resilience to the significant challenges they face. Schools are valuable platforms for accessing information and services related to child protection, heath, food, and avoiding mines and unexploded ordnance, as well as other hazards in crisis contexts. Girls who are unable to access school are more likely to experience gender-based violence, early marriage and other gender-based harms. We also know that educational inequality is a strong predictor of civil war and violent conflict.

That is why I was proud to announce £90 million for education in emergencies and protracted crises, including £80 million for ECW at the Fund’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva in February this year. On the day, donors raised an impressive US$826 million, however this still falls short of the $1.5 billion target that is needed for ECW to reach 20 million crisis-affected girls and boys through its 2023–2026 Strategic Plan. It is critical therefore that we find innovative ways to close the funding gap to ensure these children have access to a quality education. That is where we see a role for private sector donors.

I have been impressed by the work of private and philanthropic organisations such as The LEGO Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation and Porticus, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the margins of the High-Level Financing Conference. These strategic partnerships have a vital role to play in supporting education for children in crises and we need to see more of these organisations joining the sector.

ECW: Girls’ education is a key priority for the United Kingdom’s efforts to “project the UK as a force for good in the world.” How can we ensure that every girl – no matter who or where she is – has access to 12 years of quality education?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: In our new International Women and Girls Strategy, we are standing up for the right of every girl everywhere to secure the knowledge and skills she needs to reach her full potential. This includes standing up for the right of every girl to receive 12 years of quality education, including in emergency contexts, and ensuring that they have access to sexual and reproductive health education and are protected from gender-based violence. Our focus, as with all of our education support, is on foundational learning skills. Basic literacy, basic numeracy, and the socio-emotional skills that all children need to open up the doors to the 12 years of quality education. This is as relevant for children living in crisis as for those in more stable contexts. If not more so.

Girls living in countries affected by conflict are almost 2.5 times more likely to be out of primary school and 90% more likely to miss secondary schooling, compared to peers in stable contexts. Girls also face a set of interlinked barriers to accessing and remaining in education and learning, felt more acutely by marginalised groups, such as those with disabilities. As seen recently, and tragically, in Afghanistan, the rollback on women and girls’ rights can strike education and learning too.

In response, the UK is working in lockstep with international partners to challenge the rollback. We are also working closely with ECW and other partners to accelerate progress on reaching the most vulnerable in crises, including girls. We are a proud supporter of the Safe Schools Declaration, which aims to prevent gender-based and other violence in the school context. We are also prioritising better global data on education in emergencies, so that more financing is directed to education, there are better data to track results, and we can understand where and when crises become neglected.

At the country level, we are working, for example, in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria and Ethiopia to scale up our support to education in crisis situations. By improving coordination of this response with other partners we can maximise the number of children, and particularly girls, that UK funding can reach.

ECW: Recent analysis shows that the number of crisis-affected children in need of education support is increasing. At the same time, the public advance unedited version of the UN Secretary-General’s ‘Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ report indicates we are falling behind on our promise of Education For All. How can we change course to deliver on the SDGs?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: Even if ECW’s $1.5 billion fundraising target is met, it will reach less than 10% of the estimated 224 million conflict and crisis affected children and youth worldwide. Furthermore, a recent report by UNESCO states that without $97 billion in extra funding per year, low and lower-middle-income countries will be unable to meet their 2030 national SDG 4 benchmark targets. It is clear that more progress is needed if we are to deliver the SDGs. That is why we want to work closely with our partners to reform the international humanitarian system to deliver on three priorities:

Firstly, to strengthen the resilience of education systems so that children can continue to learn, safely, during an emergency. Collectively, the humanitarian system needs to prioritise building preparedness and anticipatory action in education systems. The UK has invested in piloting work to support better anticipatory action in advance of climatic shocks, which is relevant to education. It focuses on adaptation, risk management, humanitarian action, and social protection.

Secondly, to improve the coordination between our development and humanitarian response. Providing education in emergencies is not only a humanitarian response but also a critical investment in the future of affected communities. It provides hope, structure, and a pathway to the future for the next generation. A joined-up approach between the humanitarian and development sectors is essential to enable long-term resilience in the face of crises. Greater coordination between the two global education funds, Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education, is also a priority. Closer coordination between the funds will allow partners to focus on providing the most efficient and effective responses, in the context of scarce Official Development Assistance funding. It will also ensure they have maximum reach and impact without leaving children behind or duplicating efforts. In contexts including Myanmar and Afghanistan we are seeing closer alignment, with GPE and ECW working together to agree where they would add most value, while making the best use of donor funding.

Finally, we need better-designed emergency education programmes to mitigate gender-based violence risks and to keep girls safer. Currently, much of what is implemented in crisis situations is not evidence based and does not reach sufficient scale to benefit those who need it most. That is why we are advocating for the equivalent of what the UK calls ‘best buys’, in other words, research-based interventions proven to provide best impact and value for money. Such evidence relevant to humanitarian contexts, would help guide our investments in education in emergencies and protracted crises.

As I mentioned earlier, there is also a role for the private sector to help us deliver on our promise of Education for All. The UK is already working with the private sector to support girls’ education in developing countries. Launched by the Prime Minister last year, the Girls’ Education Skills Partnership (GESP) is an innovative partnership between FCDO, Generation Unlimited (a UNICEF partnership) and several major global businesses. By combining the resources of the private sector with the implementation experience of FCDO and UNICEF, GESP will provide high-quality training and market-relevant skills in manufacturing and STEM-related fields for 1 million adolescent girls and young women in Bangladesh and Nigeria. Private sector partners have a seat on the GESP Board and are making an important contribution towards addressing the skills deficit preventing adolescent girls from fulfilling their potential.

ECW: We all know that ‘leaders are readers’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are the two books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

The Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: Professionally, the two books that have influenced me most are “The Bottom Billion” by Paul Collier and “An Imperfect Offering” by James Orbinski. Both offer a unique and fascinating perspective on international aid and development. And both shaped my understanding of the biggest development and humanitarian challenges we face today. Collier’s analysis takes place at the global level, identifying the global trends that affect a country’s development and the poverty traps UN agencies must overcome. Orbinski documents his personal experiences as a doctor working for Médecins Sans Frontières in the late ’90s, including postings in Peru, Afghanistan and Rwanda. His book offers extraordinary insight into the challenges faced by humanitarian workers on the ground as well the failures of the international community in those countries. I would recommend both these books to anyone working on education in crises. They shine a light on the realities faced by the people and communities we aim to support and remind us to keep them at the heart of all we do and how we do it.

 

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Women fishing in Lake Victoria.

By Pearl Amina Karungi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2 2023 (IPS)

In a groundbreaking turn of events, women in Bugiri District, Eastern Uganda, have defied societal norms and broken into the traditionally male-dominated fish farming industry.

Through the Women Economic Empowerment Programme launched by UN Women, these women have not only mastered the art of fishing but also revolutionized their economic prospects.

Rose Nakimuli, a resident of Bugiri, vividly recalls her journey into fish farming. “When I was selected to be trained in fish farming, I embraced the opportunity. I approached it as a job,” Ms. Nakimuli says with determination.

With the support of the UN Women project, she learned the ins and outs of aquaculture, swimming, and fishing, becoming a skilled fish farmer. Today, she proudly feeds her family and earns a descent livelihood from her newfound expertise.

Ms. Nakimuli is one of 1,400 women trained in fish farming. The Programme, initiated in 2019, has set ambitious goals to enhance women’s income security, promote decent work, and empower them with economic autonomy by 2025. The success achieved in the fish farming industry in Bugiri District stands as a shining example of the program’s impact.

With funding from the Government of Sweden and Standard Bank, UN Women partnered with the Bugiri District Local Government to support rural women in engaging in fish farming activities on the waters of Lake Victoria.

As a result, 28 cages brimming with Tilapia fish now stand as a testament to the women’s unwavering dedication and determination.

Amina Nakiranda, the project’s production manager, explains that it went beyond teaching women how to fish as the programme also equipped them with essential business management skills.

“Before this programme, many of us struggled with small businesses selling fresh produce or silver fish in local marketplaces,” Ms. Nakiranda reveals.

“However, through the comprehensive training provided by the project, we learned how to run our businesses efficiently, from start to finish.”

The cage fish project goes has strengthened the women’s capacity in governance, financial literacy, and the entire fish value chain. Inspired by their achievements, the women established a private company called “Women Economic Empowerment Bugiri (WEEB).”

Immaculate Were, the CEO of WEEB, proudly highlights the transformational journey of these women. “Although 85% of the beneficiaries are illiterate, they have become specialists in various aspects of fish farming, including feeding, harvesting, preservation, marketing, and trading,” Ms. Were remarks, adding that “Once a woman gets wealthy, that’s wealth for the whole nation.”

The project has also made significant strides in improving gender relations at the household level. With women contributing to the family budget and gaining financial independence, gender-based violence has notably reduced.

Judith, a member of the executive board of WEEB, shares her experience: “The project has reduced gender-based violence because we no longer sit home and beg our husbands for everything. We are no longer burdens; the project has empowered us.”

Beyond individual success stories, the fish farming project has made substantial contributions to the national GDP. With an impressive production of 508.5 tons of fish, the women have generated sales worth UGX 4.3 billion (approximately $1.15 million).

The project’s impact extends further, with UN Women providing essential support, including accommodations for working women, daycare services for their children, and necessary resources such as shelters, fish nets, life jackets, and a refrigerated truck for convenient market access.

“Thanks to UN Women, today we feel like heroes,” Ms. Nakimuli adds. ” Even the men view us as heroes, because fishing used to be a man’s job and we are excelling in it. It also gives us income to cater for our households.”

The journey of these resilient women serves as an inspiration, proving that with support and determination, barriers can be shattered, and new horizons can be explored.

Pearl Amina Karungi is Communications and Knowledge Management Officer, UN Women

Source: Africa Renewal: a United Nations digital magazine that covers Africa’s economic, social and political developments.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Nazihah Noor
KUALA LUMPUR and BERN, Aug 2 2023 (IPS)

To achieve universal health coverage, people need public healthcare systems providing fair access to decent health care. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate, appropriate and sustainable financing over the long term.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Appropriate arrangements can help ensure a financially sustainable, effective and equitable healthcare system. However, insurance-based systems – both private and social – not only incur unnecessary costs, but also undermine ensuring health for all.

Private health insurance
Voluntary private health insurance (PHI) is not an acceptable option for both equity and efficiency reasons. Those with lower health risks are less likely to buy insurance. Paying the same rate will be seen as benefiting those deemed greater risks, especially the less healthy, often also those less well off.

Hence, PHI premiums are often ‘risk-rated’. This means those considered greater risks – e.g., the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions – face higher premiums. As these are often un-affordable, many cannot afford coverage.

This is clearly neither cost-effective nor equitable, but also socially risky, especially with communicable diseases. This typically means poorer health outcomes compared to spending. Also, various insurance premium rate arrangements have different distributional consequences.

‘Fee-for-service’ reimbursement encourages unnecessary investigations and over-treatment. This escalates costs, raising premiums, without correspondingly improving health. But limiting such ‘abuse’ requires monitoring, always costly.

Nazihah Noor

Unsurprisingly, many PHI companies use costly ‘managed healthcare’ services to try to limit rising costs due to such abuses. Thus, Americans spend much more on health than others, but with surprisingly modest, unequal and hardly cost-effective health outcomes.

With PHI, much public expenditure is needed to cover the poor and others who cannot afford the premiums, often also deemed to be at greater risk. Hence, achieving ‘health-for-all’ in such circumstances would require costly public subsidization of PHI.

Social health insurance
Unlike typically ‘voluntary’ PHI, social health insurance (SHI) is usually mandatory for entire national populations. Although often espoused with the best of intentions, SHI is invariably costlier due to its limitations and problems.

SHI incurs additional costs of health insurance administration to enrol, collect premiums, ascertain eligibility and benefits, make payments and minimize abuses. Revenue financed universal coverage need not incur such costs.

Compared to PHI, SHI seems like a step forward for countries with weak or non-existent public healthcare arrangements. But like PHI, SHI encourages over-treatment and cost escalation, as well as costly bureaucratic insurance administration.

Instead of such abuses inherent to insurance systems, a revenue financed health systems would incentivize prioritizing the health and wellbeing of those it is responsible for, thus emphasizing preventive health.

Such a health system contrasts with insurance systems’ emphasis on minimizing costs for the often unnecessary medical services it incentivizes, instead of improving the population’s health and wellbeing.

Government subsidies for health insurance, private or social, would inevitably go to the transnational giants which dominate health insurance internationally.

Financing SHI complications
Hence, SHI involves much more per capita health spending, raising it by 3-4%! But despite being much more costly than revenue-financed systems, there is no evidence health outcomes are improved by switching to SHI from government funding.

Germany’s SHI has been more cost-effective than the US with its PHI. But it is less cost effective than most other economies with revenue-financed healthcare. Nevertheless, healthcare financing consultants, continue to recommend versions of SHI, although it is clearly not cost-effective, appropriate, efficient or equitable.

SHI schemes remain in some rich countries for specific historical reasons, e.g., Germany’s evolved from its long history of union-provided health insurance. But more recently, even these economies rely increasingly on supplementary revenue financing. But again, such hybrid financing does not improve cost-effectiveness.

As SHI typically involves imposing a flat payroll tax, it discourages employers from providing proper employment contracts to staff. SHI is estimated to have reduced formal employment by 8-10% worldwide, and total employment in rich countries by 5-6%!

It is also difficult and costly to collect SHI premiums from the self-employed, or from casual, temporary and informal workers not on regular payrolls. Also, most working people in developing countries are not in formal employment, with far fewer unionized.

SHI schemes are always difficult to introduce as they would reduce take-home incomes. In most developing countries, most families cannot afford such pay-cuts. Hence, government revenue would still be needed to cover the uncovered to achieve health for all.

Many SHI proposals also recommend earmarking revenue from new ‘health’ taxes collected. Such earmarking creates likely conflicts of interest reminiscent of justifications for ‘sin taxes’ on addictive narcotics, smoking, alcohol consumption and gambling.

Will governments perpetuate unhealthy practices and behaviours to secure more tax revenue? Is there an optimum level of smoking or sugar consumption to be allowed, even encouraged, to get such earmarked funding?

Revenue financing
International evidence shows progressive revenue-funded public health financing to be much more equitable, cost-effective and beneficial than SHI. Hence, moving from revenue-financing to SHI would be a step backwards in terms of both equity and efficiency, or cost-effectiveness.

The late World Bank economist Adam Wagstaff and others have long advocated tax- or revenue-financed health provisioning due to the significant additional costs of managing health insurance systems, both private and social.

Revenue-financed public healthcare financing avoids the many insurance administration expenses incurred by both PHI and SHI. There will be no more need for such costly payments for unnecessary medical tests, procedures and treatments, and bureaucratic processes to manage insurance procedures and curb abuses, e.g., those associated with ‘moral hazard’.

Better financing and reorganization of preventive health efforts are needed. Public health programmes requiring mass participation, e.g., breast or cervical cancer screening, generally have much better outcomes with revenue-financing compared to SHI.

Better results can be achieved by improving tax-funded healthcare. More resources need to be deployed to improve preventive and primary healthcare. Strengthening public health services must include improving staff service conditions, morale and retention rates.

There is nothing inherently wrong with revenue-financed healthcare. Underfunding is largely due to political choices and fiscal constraints. These are typically due to externally imposed political limits.

Instead of dogmatically insisting on SHI, as is typical of health financing consultants, revenue financing of public healthcare should be reformed, strengthened and improved by:
* increasing and improving budget allocations.
* eliminating waste and corruption with competitive bidding, etc.
* increasing government revenue with fairer taxation, including wealth, ‘windfall’ and deterrent ‘sin’ taxes, e.g., of tobacco and sugar consumption.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Angela Umoru-David

By Angela Umoru-David
ABUJA, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

Not all wars are fought on the battleground. The Cold War has taught us that certain wars could go on for decades, without overt violence. Perhaps, we are in the middle of another one with China as the new rival to the United States of America. This time, the ‘battlefield’ is Africa.

This Voice of America article speaks on how China is already outpacing the U.S. in its relations with the continent. New York Times cites loans provided by the Chinese government to several African nations and investments such as hospitals, transportation infrastructure and stadiums already dotting the African landscape.

Similarly, we all know of how the United States has heavily supported many countries in Africa through trade and in the fight against insurgency; putting boots on the ground, supplying top-grade artillery, training security agencies etc.

Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?

There is no point in rehashing the dysfunctional relationship Africa has had with… hmmm, what’s the right term? The global north? Developed nations? Let’s just say ‘richer nations’.

Also, there is no need to debate how that wealth came to be. The point is that Africa has, for the longest time, depended on wealthier nations for humanitarian aid and oftentimes, this aid always comes with strings attached.

Recently, I was at an event organized by Devex where Congresswoman Sara Jacobs spoke on US-Africa relations. She made very valid points about how the United States has, over the years, used a carrot-stick approach with the continent, dangling humanitarian aid for alignment with the United States policies and ideologies and sanctions for derelictions (my words, not hers).

She highlighted the positive impact of some of these policies like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which I had not heard of prior to her mentioning it but has yielded interesting returns for Nigeria and the U.S. She went on to caution against the U.S limiting diplomatic relations with Africa to a strategic competition to simply be one-up over China.

Then she said something that got me thinking really hard. She talked about the United States giving Africa agency. In fairness to her, I do not remember the full statement she made and her points of view were largely refreshing to hear but my mind went off on a tangent, pondering a question, “Will the USA ever really accept Africa’s agency, even when we do not agree with them?”

The truth is that Africa does not need any country or ‘superpower’ to give it agency. Absolutely not! Africa is made up of sovereign nations who already have agency and while these nations may not act like it as they go cap-in-hand seeking foreign aid, this is a fact.

All of this made me wonder if it was 1884-1885 all over again- the Berlin Conference that ended with the partitioning of Africa and rules for its conquest.

Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?

The goal of this article is not to point accusatory fingers at the United States or China. After all, some of these humanitarian efforts have truly improved certain communities, albeit at a great cost. More so, as our people say, when you point one finger, the others point back at you. What have our leaders done to reposition the continent? How has the continent looked inward to build itself?

The questions abound but I believe this is the start. There are so many development organizations in Africa, but how many of them are thinking of systemic change rather than merely providing direct service?

Do not misunderstand me: direct service is important in bridging immediate gaps to improve the quality of life in various communities. Nonetheless, if we are going to initiate long-term change then we should be thinking of systems change, policy advocacy, looking at the big picture and laying the building blocks for posterity.

Irrespective of the sectors you may be working in- governance, health, education, environment etc.- as you provide services for the ‘now’, you must also have a bird’s eye view of how to improve your community for the long run and eliminate the factors that perpetuate the status quo.

With the expertise you have in your local context, you should be the one directing even international grantmakers on how best to engage communities. This is the concept of localization, that I wrote about here. This is why collaboration and coalition-building in the development space is important. Development work is not a competition even though grantmaking has made it seem that way.

Ultimately, Africa needs to stand up for itself. There is no one coming to save us. Otherwise, we will sit by, twiddle our thumbs and find ourselves back in 1884.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative

Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown. Credit: UN

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

Civilian infrastructure is under attack in cities across Ukraine, and the need for long-term aid grows. However, the United Nations’ 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine is only 30 percent funded, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, told journalists.

The response plan for the year calls for USD 3.9 billion to continue frontline deliveries several times a week, prepare Ukraine for winter, and support long-term recovery and rebuilding in the country. Brown said that funding meant to help at least 11 million Ukrainians has been inadequate due to unexpected demands.

Access to water for drinking and irrigation has become a key issue following the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam. Top-floor residents have watched their downstairs neighbors evacuate flooded apartments. Several thousand people have been displaced due to water damage. Brown said that while the situation has been managed in the short term, the UN team continues searching for long-term solutions to water contamination.

Brown highlighted that the need for trauma support is growing at a fast pace. While it is too early to assess the long-term psychological effects of the current war, a 2019 study found a high prevalence of PTSD and depression in Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

The Black Sea city of Odesa has been attacked by Russia several times in the past weeks. The city is an important hub for the UN and the humanitarian community because it acts as a staging area for frontline responses, Brown explained. She recently traveled there to check on UN staff.

In Odesa, Brown visited the historical Orthodox cathedral. The Transfiguration Cathedral is in the center of a protected part of the city and within 700 meters of where most UN staff live and work. Brown learned that neighboring civilians had taken shelter in a bunker in the cathedral when an air siren went off, not knowing it would be hit. There was damage throughout the building, with one wing completely destroyed. A team of UNESCO experts has been deployed to further assess the condition of the cathedral. Brown said she was heartened to see community members gather to clean up broken glass.

“What I saw in Odesa last week with my own eyes is being repeated across many big cities in Ukraine,” Brown said.

According to Brown, big cities with a UN presence nearby are regularly targeted. Whole neighborhood blocks have been struck, and entire buildings have come down. Attacks on infrastructure like critical ports have hurt civilian workers, Ukrainian farmers, and vulnerable people in the Global South who rely on grain from the region. Access to resources has been a particular concern since Russia’s termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The UN continues to advocate for access to Russian-occupied territories for the purpose of providing aid. Brown said they have been denied due to “security concerns.”

“The humanitarian situation hasn’t changed… the only thing that’s going to relieve that situation is if the war stops,” Brown said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and President of SOLA, speaks at the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

When providing education to her small group of Afghan girls, who had been studying at a boarding school back home, became tenuous, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, relocated them to Rwanda.

She had set up a pioneering school under the project SOLA, the Afghan word for peace, and a short form for School of Leadership Afghanistan. But as the Taliban swept to power in August 2021, she closed the doors of the school, destroyed any school records which could help identify the girls, and on August 25, relocated 250 members of the SOLA community, including the student body and graduates from the programme, totally more than 100 girls, to Rwanda.

Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and SOLA’s President said a major challenge had been the lack of resources and capacity to teach Afghan girls after the return of the Taliban deprived right to education of girls in secondary schools and above.

As the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder of the nation’s only all-girls boarding school, initially ran the school out of a former principal’s living room. But that soon became untenable.

Speaking on the sidelines of The Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023), which took place in Kigali from 17-20 July 2023, Basij-Rasikh, who completed her undergraduate studies in the United States, explained that when Kabul fell under the control of the Taliban, she managed within a short time to evacuate the entire school community to Rwanda.

“Although we managed to move the school to a safe country, it is still embarrassing and shameful for me since Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls’ access to education has been suspended,” she said.

Initially, SOLA started as a scholarship program where Afghan youth would be identified and could access quality education abroad and, later on, go back to their home country as highly-skilled Afghans in whichever profession they chose.

“When the US announced that they were to withdraw their troops in Afghanistan, it created a lot of anxiety among young Afghans who were in the West hoping to return to the country.”

Basij-Rasikh regrets that some of her former students, who were able to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return, are still struggling to continue their education overseas.

“We wish to see many Afghan girls return to schools,” she said, explaining that the migration status of the students in many countries restricted their access to education.

Since the school opened last year’s admissions season, Shabana Basij-Rasikh and her team have been inviting Afghan girls worldwide to apply and join the rest in Rwanda. Last year they enrolled 27 girls in their first intake.

“The major challenge is that there are several hundreds of thousands of girls who want to join our campus, but space is limited, and so places are being granted on merit and need,” Shabana told IPS.

Shabana argues investing in girls’ education is a smart investment; she is convinced that the current situation in Afghanistan must and should not be accepted or supported by any country around the world.

On September 18, 2021, a month after taking over the country, the Taliban ordered the reopening of only boys’ secondary schools. A few months later, in March 2022, according to human rights organizations, the Taliban again pledged to reopen all schools, but they officially closed girls’ secondary schools.

“These girls deserve the opportunity to realize their full potential, and the international community has an important role to play,” Shabana said.

UNESCO’s latest figures show that 2,5 million or 80 percent of school-aged Afghan girls and women are out of school.  The order suspending university education for women, announced in December last year, affects more than 100,000 students attending government and private institutions, according to the UN agency.

On the sidelines of the Women Deliver Conference 2023, Senegalese President Macky Sall pledged that his government would offer 100 scholarships for women who have seen their right to education decimated under Taliban rule in Afghanistan to pursue their university degrees in Senegal.

Rwanda is one of several African countries that agreed to temporarily host evacuated Afghans.

Sall, who was reacting to the concerns raised by Basij-Rasikhat, said his Government was ready to give chance to Afghan girls to pursue their studies.

So far, SOLA school has received 2,000 applications across 20 countries where some Afghans are living.

In 2022, it received 180 applications from Afghans living in 10 countries, but only 27 girls were admitted.

“That explains how families in Afghanistan are ready to support the girls in moving abroad to pursue their education,” Shabana said.

“Boarding schools that allow Afghan girls to study and live together are the best way to promote their education.”

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The tea-pluckers with their wet-weather gear at Blue Field tea estate in Ramboda, Sri Lanka. Amid a looming food security crisis linked to Sri Lanka’s cost-of-living crunch, the country’s most vulnerable breadwinners wonder how much longer they can cope, as the Government battles the nation’s worst economic crisis since independence in 1948. November 2022. Credit: UN News/Daniel Johnson

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

When this Indian Ocean- island gained independence from Britain in 1948 after some 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was simply named the “Dominion of Ceylon”.

This country which was granted universal franchise nearly two decades before independence was seen as one of Asia’s first democracies-if not the first.

Sadly, that reputation has fast faded.

Today, that right to vote is being denied with even elections to local bodies been halted for dubious reasons including the lack of state funds. The Supreme Court issued an interim order asking that funds be made available for the election. ruling.

That order was simply ignored. Instead, the ruling Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP) MPs threatened to summon the judges to parliament for allegedly violating their privileges

The most recent is a desperate move by one government MP to move a private member’s motion to have parliament vote to let the expired bodies continue in the absence of elections.

Fortunately, the Attorney-General informed the Speaker that such a move was unconstitutional and so would require a two-third majority vote and perhaps a referendum. That shut the door on this piece of frippery.

The government’s concern is understandable. It is led by a stand-in president of one party propped up in parliament by a majority from a one- time political enemy the SLPP, now living a symbiotic political existence.

Neither of them wants an election even at the lowest levels of governance for fear of what the results might signify. Negative results would sound alarm bells ahead of the presidential elections next year and parliamentary elections the year after, though the president could call parliamentary elections earlier.

Those who would look back at Sri Lankan political history since 1977 might well wonder whether current president Ranil Wickremesinghe, filling in until November next year for predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa who resigned after fleeing public wrath, has taken a page out of his uncle Junius Richard Jayewardene’s book of political Machiavellianism.

But if “Yankee Dicky”, as Jayewardene was called from his early days for his pro-American foreign policy views and his capitalist economic outlook, took a turn to the right when he came to power in 1977, his nephew has taken a sharper turn in that direction, his neoliberal views meshing with the IMF rescue programme intended to pull the country out of the economic mess that Gotabaya Rajapaksa created during his short presidency.

Yet Wickremesinghe’s path to economic resuscitation is strewn with political and working- class casualties against whom some of the most abrasive laws in the country’s statute books have been employed, such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

International conventions such as the ICCPR have been stood on its head to detain dissidents and clamped down on public protests and other rights guaranteed under the constitution that his uncle imposed on the country.

If the IMF agreement calls for the government to sell the family silver, as Wickremesinghe’s offer of even profit- making state- owned enterprises and other state assets to foreign and local investors suggest, this is bound to adversely affect employment adding to the amounting joblessness in recent years following the Covid pandemic and President Rajapaksa’s misguided economic policies.

Besides this, a new Labour law that would repeal some 28 existing laws granting workers’ rights won over the years through hard struggles by leftist trade unions and political parties, would be replaced by stringent new laws heavily weighted in favour of employers.

The proposed labour laws now been waved about by an over-enthusiastic Labour Minister hoping to please the president and the business community will, if not challenged before the Supreme Court, will jettison many long existing workers’ rights to create a comfortable environment for prospective foreign investors and the government’s business cronies.

A new anti-terrorism law, more abhorrent than the PTA, has drawn heavy flak both at home and internationally. An anti-corruption law has just been passed, more to satisfy the IMF than to catch the crooks, particularly politicians who fattened themselves over the years. Though Sri Lanka already has stringent laws not even a fistful of politicians have been prosecuted and convicted for bribery and corruption.

Meanwhile the country is facing a huge brain drain. Since 2022 some 700 or so doctors, specialists and medical staff have left for employment abroad. So have other professionals including engineers, IT specialists, airline pilots and technicians.

Education Minister Susil Premajayantha admitted in parliament the other day that 255 university academics and some 150-odd non- academic staff have vacated posts since last year.

Furthermore, UN reports have pinpointed the rise of poverty in the country with families and school children skipping meals because people cannot afford the high prices for domestic essentials like electricity.

The Agriculture Minister was warning the other day about the possibility of poor harvests in the coming season which, if sadly it does happen, could lead to food shortages

The seeming political stability with no queues and no demonstrators, should not be misconceived. While Wickremesinghe’s governing alliance in which fissures have been more conspicuous recently, prepares the ground to welcome foreign and local capitalist entrepreneurs, the same ground is being cut under the feet of the vast majority who survived all these years on their meagre earnings and now are struggling to survive.

In 1972, the then coalition government led by the world’s first woman prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike which came to power two years earlier, made the final constitutional break with Britain, dropping the British monarch as its head of state and declaring the country as the “Republic of Sri Lanka”. It maintained the Westminster-style parliamentary system it was accustomed to.

That government was roundly defeated at the 1977 general election. The right-wing United National Party (UNP) under its new leader Jayewardene, popularly called “JR”, won an unprecedented five-sixth majority in parliament driving Mrs Bandaranaike’s SLFP to a single digit presence.

Jayewardene decided the country needed a new constitution. But it was drafted without any public consultation whereas the 1972 constitution was drafted by parliament meeting separately as a constituent assembly.

Jayewardene named himself president and was sworn-in on 4th February 1978 under a new executive presidential system. The name of the country was changed into an ostentatious “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”.

Armed with enormous powers and a party with a five-sixth majority in parliament Jayewardene said the only thing he could not do was to change a man into a woman and vice versa.

The new name for Sri Lanka was a tragic misnomer. It did not take long for Jayewardene to show that he was neither democratic nor socialist. He set up a presidential commission which hauled up former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, her closest minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike and others before it for alleged corruption and abuse of power. They were stripped of their civic rights, eliminated from political activity for seven years.

The president was more concerned about preserving his huge majority in parliament fearing that a general election would see a resurrected opposition returning in larger numbers.

In a move unheard of in democratic governance, President Jayewardene obtained signed letters of resignation from parliament from all his 140 MPs. The one thing missing was the date which the president would fill in if required. That was Jayewardene’s Damocles-ean Sword suspended over his own MPs.

The biggest blot on Jayewardene’s escutcheon is the bloody events of July 1983 when minority Tamils in Colombo and around the country were physically attacked and some 3000, according to reports were killed, their houses burnt and the businesses destroyed and looted. Thousands were made refugees in their own country or abroad.

The immediate cause for this horrendous and tragic happening 40 years ago was said to be the killing of 13 soldiers by Tamil insurgents in the north.

But when the attacks on Tamils and their homes really unfolded on July 25, as I witnessed that day and later, there were clear signs of government involvement. The fact that neither the president nor any minister appeared on TV calling a halt to this ethnic convulsion spoke volumes.

When the government did finally speak about four days later, it claimed the attacks were the “spontaneous outburst of Sinhala wrath” at the killing of the soldiers.

But with international community critical at the government’s inaction to stop the carnage, Jayewardene swiftly changed tack. The government claimed there was a “Naxalite” conspiracy to assassinate government figures and overthrow the government. A foreign hand-unnamed- was involved, it said.

Jayewardene evoked the Public Security Act to round up opposition politicians he feared were growing in popularity and throw them in jail and sealed the Communist Party newspaper. I remember my friend John Elliot of the “Financial Times” calling it “a crude cover up” while other foreign journalists simply dismissed the story.

What does matter now is that right through these events of the Jayewardene years, Sri Lanka’s current President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Jayewardene’s nephew, was a faithful member of his uncle’s cabinet and possibly privy to what went on inside.

In fact, if I remember correctly, he made a speech in parliament on the so-called “Naxalite” plot.

There is one essential difference. JR served two terms as president. His nephew lost two presidential elections and yearns to be at elected president at least once.

Next March he will be 75. Would he then be at the door step of the Last Chance Saloon? If so how far would he go to make sure he becomes and elected president like his uncle before retires from politics.

The United National Party (UNP) that his uncle represented and he does now, was called the Uncle Nephew Party from its early days. We shall see before long, won’t we.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media.

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As Dipak Subedi was organizing a vaccination programme against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the city of Bharatpur in Chitwan district of southern Nepal he was getting phone calls from neighbouring districts asking if he had extra doses available — people were willing to travel for hours to get their girls vaccinated against HPV, which […]

Several Southern African countries have or are in the process of enacting legislation that limits the civil society space, with implications for human rights. Credit: CIVICUS Monitor

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Freedom of expression is under threat as governments in Southern Africa have enacted laws restricting civil society organizations, says global rights advocacy organisation, CIVICUS, warning that human rights violations are on the increase globally.

“The state of civil society is unfortunately not improving; civil restrictions continue across the world,” said David Kobe, the advocacy Lead at CIVICUS.

“More than 2 billion people live in countries that are rated as closed, which is the worst rating any country can have – this means that 28 percent of the world’s population are not able to speak out when there is corruption or human rights violations restrictions or cannot write articles as journalists without facing appraisals,” Kobe told IPS in an interview, noting that the organization’s human rights tool is indicating growing suppression of civil space across the world.

The CIVICUS Monitor, a tool accessing the state of civic space in more than 190 countries, provides evidence of restrictions on human rights by governments. The CIVICUS Monitor rates the state of civil space ‘open, ‘repressed’, and ‘closed’ according to each country.

Kobe notes that human rights violations are increasing globally with more restrictions on civil society in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The picture is not different in the Southern Africa region where restrictions on civil space have been continuing, and these have included censorship, violent response to protests and restrictive laws as seen in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

Closing Civil Society Space

Zimbabwe remains on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist as attacks on civic space continue ahead of the scheduled 2023 national elections.

Last November, Zimbabwe approved the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, known as the Patriotic Act. The law seeks to create the offence of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe” and will essentially criminalise the lobbying of foreign governments to extend or implement sanctions against Zimbabwe or its officials.

Furthermore, the Zimbabwe government gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill in November 2021, amending the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which governs non-profit organizations. The main aim of the Bill is to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations to strengthen the country’s legal framework to combat money laundering, financing terrorism and proliferation.

Civil society organizations warn that the Bill could hinder their activities and financing with potential adverse impacts on economic development. Besides, NGOs argue that they are a low-risk sector with no precedence of financing terrorism and money laundering.

Musa Kika, Executive Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, says the PVO will affect the operations of NGOs, including deterring donors from funding PVOs, fearing the money could end up under the grip of the government. Besides, the Bill has a provision giving the Minister of Justice unfettered powers to place under supervision or surveillance, using subjective discretion, those PVOs the Minister deems to be high risk.

“Continued hostility and harassment on the part of the government towards the work of CSOs in the country will thus only result in a hugely detrimental effect on their efforts in advancing the protection of and respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of ordinary Zimbabwean civilians as espoused under Zimbabwe’s Constitution,” Kika said. He noted that civil society organisations were operating in a tough environment in Zimbabwe where the government does not trust them, especially those working in the fields of governance and human rights.

“We have a government that does not want to account,” said Kika. “We have had many human rights activists who have been arrested on flimsy charges…Terrorism finance is being used as a cover, but the motive is to close the democratic space because the government and accountability in human rights and governance are sworn enemies.”

In Zimbabwe, NGOs have, in partnership with the government, supported development, providing a range of services in health, education, social protection, humanitarian assistance, environmental management, emergency response and democracy building.  A research report commissioned by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with the Southern Defenders and Accountability Lab has warned of huge job and financial losses if the Bill is passed into law.

United Nations experts have urged Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa to reject enacting a bill that would severely restrict civic space and the right to freedom of association in the country.

However, President Mnangagwa has defended the passage of the PVO Bill, vowing to speedily “sign it into law once it reaches my desk”. In a commentary in his weekly column published by the government-owned Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said signing the bill into law will usher Zimbabwe into a “new era of genuine philanthropic and advocacy work, unsullied by ulterior political or financial motives.”

Mnangagwa said the law was meant to defend the country from foreign infiltration.

Engendering Patriotism but Endangering Democracy

Zimbabwe has also recently approved another repressive law known as the ‘Patriot Act’.

“The Patriotic Act is an extremely repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation that has serious ramifications for citizens’ rights, particularly the rights of freedom of expression in the lead up to the elections,” human rights lawyer, Dough Coltart, tells IPS in an interview.

“There is a very real need to educate the citizens on what the ramifications of this Act are for people’s lives because the Act has far-reaching consequences for the entire country and will essentially stifle any public dialogue around the challenges we are facing as a country.”

“The Patriot law is a bad piece of legislation which is an affront to the practice of ethical journalism in Zimbabwe,” Njabulo Ncube, Coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum (ZINEF), told IPS. “It stinks to the highest skies as it criminalizes the practice of good journalism. It is anti-media freedom and free expression…civil society organisations have also been caught in the mix; they cannot effectively make government account for its actions.”

Democracy Dimming

The situation in Zimbabwe is echoed in some countries across Southern Africa, where governments are cracking down on CSOs in the name of protecting national sovereignty and the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.

In Angola, the country’s National Assembly, on May 25 2023, passed a draft NGO Statute, which CSOs have criticized for limiting freedom of association by giving the state excessive powers to interfere with civil society activities.

According to the Movimento de Defensores de Direitos Humanos de Angola (Movement of Human Rights Defenders of Angola, KUTAKESA), the government has targeted civil society with legislation that is meant for terrorists and money launderers, though it has never been proven in any court that a CSO has committed an act of terrorism in Angola.

On the contrary, the rationale of this legislation constitutes institutional terrorism, the target of which are CSOs, said Godinho Cristóvão, a jurist, human rights defender and executive director of KUTEKA in an interview with the CIVICUS Monitor.

“The Angolan authorities should have aligned themselves with the democratic rule of law and respected the work of CSOs and HRDs,” Cristóvão is quoted as saying.

“Instead, there has been an increase in threats, harassment and illegal arrests of human rights defenders who denounce or hold peaceful demonstrations against acts of bad governance and violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms. There have been clear setbacks with regard to the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution, as well as the rights set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights treaties Angola has ratified.”

In Mozambique, a new NGO on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, which overregulates CSOs, is seen as the death knell for the civic movement in the country. The Act was approved in October 2022 under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It has further curtailed freedoms of expression, information, press, assembly and public participation.

Paula Monjane, Executive Director of the Civil Society Learning and Capacity Building Centre (CESC), a Mozambican non-profit civil society organisation, said currently, the legislation was being proposed to silence dissenting voices and people fighting for better governance of public affairs and the protection of human rights in the country.

The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act law establishes a legal regime for the creation, organisation and functioning of CSOs, and Monjane highlighted that it contains several norms that violate freedom of association despite this right being safeguarded by the constitution and international human rights treaties.

“It gives the government absolute and discretionary powers to ‘create’, control the functioning of, suspend and extinguish CSOs,” said Monjane, adding, “If the bill is approved, it will legitimise already existing practices restricting civic space, allowing the persecution of dissenting voices and organisations critical of the government, up to banning them from continuing to operate.”

Monjane said if the bill is passed into law CSOs in Mozambique will push for it to be declared unconstitutional and will ask the African Union, through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations, through the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to urgently condemn it.

On actions to foster human rights and human rights defenders, Kobe said civil society organisations must be supported to hold governments accountable for upholding national and international human rights conventions that they have subscribed to.

The Universal Periodic Review, an assessment of the state of civic and human rights of a country over a four-year period, provides recommendations to governments enabling them to open civic space and remove restrictive laws.

“Governments need to implement the recommendations of the UPR and not treat them as a formality for them to be seen by the international community as respecting human rights when they are not,” said Kobe, adding that encouraging governments to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was also a way of getting them to see development alongside human rights.

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Humanitarian efforts in Niger are continuing despite the military coup. In Niger, Only 56% of the population has access to a source of drinking water, according to UNICEF. Photo credit: EU/ECHO/Jean de Lestrange

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Nicole Kouassi, the UNDP resident representative in Niger, is constantly faced with the challenge of coordinating aid delivery to 4.3 million people in need. On Wednesday, Kouassi woke up and learned this must happen in a country where the president had just been overthrown. She said she did not see warning signs of a coup.

Kouassi told journalists that UN humanitarian, development, and peace programs continue in Niger because their support is still desperately needed. According to the World Bank, over 40% of Niger’s population was living in extreme poverty in 2021. Before the present political crisis, 3.3 million people were acutely food insecure, mostly women and children. However, the $583 million dollar appeal for aid has only been 32% funded.

“The humanitarian response continues on the ground and has never stopped,” Jean Noel Gentile, the World Food Bank representative, said.

Nevertheless, the military coup in Niger affects the flow of humanitarian aid to other neighboring countries while Niger airspace and borders are closed.

While aid programs are individual to a country, closed borders can interfere with supply chain logistics. Gentile explained that there is a crucial route through Niger that allows for the transport of aid from a logistics hub in Yemen to Mali and Burkina Faso. Aid deliveries for Niger to Chad for Sudanese refugees have also been temporarily suspended.

Gentile said it is unclear exactly how many people will be affected. He noted that there may be alternative aid routes through Cameroon and Nigeria.

When borders are open, migrants from Mali and Burkina Faso also travel to Niger. According to Emmanuel Gignac, UNHCR chief of mission, no movement has been detected across Niger’s borders since their closure.

Kouassi has not been in contact with the military leaders in power and does not yet have plans to discuss humanitarian aid delivery with them. She noted that her office does not have a political UN mandate but echoed concerns expressed by Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres has strongly condemned the “unconstitutional change of government in Niger.”

“Stop obstructing the democratic governance of the country and respect the rule of law,” Guterres said in a statement to those detaining the president.

Kouassi said that all UN staff were accounted for and that Niamey, the capital, seemed calm as civilians respected their new curfew.

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In April 2023, India overtook China as the world’s most populous country. Credit: United Nations

By Taira Bhargava
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

This year, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2035, but its population will likely continue to decline, while India’s will continue to grow.

India is projected to surpass 1.5 billion people by the end of this decade, reaching 1.7 billion people by 2064. Goldman Sachs analysts recently predicted India will be the world’s second-largest economy by 2075.

India’s population growth is widely touted as an economic opportunity to be seized, a chance for India to press its advantage as the most populous nation on Earth, with the greatest proportion of working age people.

For example, there have been recent calls for India to take the helm as a world leader in steel production. Demand for steel is expected to surge as India’s population grows, and more steel production capacity could boost India’s economy.

But there is more to population growth than just bigger markets and workforces. The same population growth that drives up demand also puts immense pressure on environmental, education, and health infrastructure.

For example, it will increasingly strain access to clean water, threatening drinking water safety and sanitation for communities. It could also lead to shortages in teachers and schools, and scarcity of medical professionals and health facilities.

So, as India’s population grows, it’s imperative that we balance its economic development with the well-being of its people. Sabina Dewan, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, says population growth could be a “tremendous productive force for the economy” but economic growth “hinges on providing good quality, productive, and well-remunerated jobs.” As Wilson Center scholar Jennifer Sciubba put it, “We’ve got 1.4 billion people in India, and it’s up to India to decide whether or not that becomes a resource or a burden.”

How population growth ultimately impacts people depends on how government, civil society, and society as a whole address its challenges and capitalize on its benefits. One key aspect of this is upholding people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

As India’s population expands, the number of people of child-bearing age will continue to grow, and the stakes of SRHR will get higher. Studies show access to comprehensive SRHR services is key for health and well-being and helps women and girls reach their educational and economic goals. It also enables them to delay and space childbearing, moderating population growth and easing pressure on natural resources and infrastructure.

Currently, women and girls in India do not have sufficient access to SRHR services. Two million adolescent Indian women have an unmet need for modern contraception. A staggering 78% of abortions among adolescents are unsafe, leading to an elevated risk of complications.

And as India’s population grows, it also raises the stakes of gender discrimination and achieving gender equity. Without sufficient investment in the health and rights and women and girls, population growth is likely to exacerbate existing gender disparities.

But when women gain access to more education, economic opportunity, and family planning resources, it leads to greater economic participation and prosperity. Research finds such programs can help lift people out of poverty, improving their standard of living and contributing to a more inclusive economy.

In order to leverage the demographic dividend from population growth, in addition to manufacturing, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure, India’s government should invest in its people.

It should focus on skill development and quality education programs that include women and girls, with emphasis on vocational training and technical education to equip the workforce with the skills the rapidly changing job market demands.

India’s rapid population growth is neither a blessing nor a curse, neither utopian opportunity nor dystopian destiny. Instead, it’s a blend of challenges and possibilities. The outcome for people depends on the actions we take and the investments we make.

Conventional investments like ramping up steel production may raise India’s GDP, but won’t by themselves make people happier or healthier, or lead to greater productivity and prosperity in the long run.

For that we’ll need a comprehensive approach, including policies and investments that prioritize SRHR, gender equity, education, and health. That’s the pathway towards beneficial economic growth, sustainable development, and a more balanced, prosperous future.

Taira Bhargava is a Stanback Reproductive Health Research fellow at the Population Institute in Washington, DC. Hailing from New Delhi, India, she is a rising junior at Duke University, studying Human Biology and Environmental Science.

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